


it's still a fresh wound

by yunhaiiro



Category: Barry (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, M/M, immediately after ronny/lilly, pairing mostly teased, the inherent sexual tension of getting your wounds patched
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunhaiiro/pseuds/yunhaiiro
Summary: There's only thing I want, don't make me say, just get me bandages, I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.- Wishbone, Richard SikenTakes place after ronny/lilly.Someonemust have fixed Fuches terrible job at sewing Barry's stab wound. And turns out that NoHo Hank is a man of many hidden talents.
Relationships: Barry Berkman/NoHo Hank
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	it's still a fresh wound

Barry stares out the window of the car while Fuches drives him back to his apartment. 

He’s not exactly lucid (he tries not to think about how much blood he’s lost), but the prickling pain pulsing on his back, plus the dry blood clotting his nose and the ache he feels over his whole body are keeping him from falling asleep, if barely. 

He’s glad that way he’s not having any more dreams, at least. 

Fuches parks in front of the building. He says something to Barry, who registers not a word. He just shakes his head (a terrible decision, because it only makes him dizzy) as he’s opening the car door and more slumping over than getting out, doubtful for a second that his legs will hold him up. 

Nonetheless, they do, and he starts dragging himself over to the gate, sparing just one glance back to the car. Fuches is waiting for him to reach the doorway, hands still glued to the damn steering wheel, with a strangely eager expression mixed in with worry, like a sick pantomime of a parent dropping their kid off. 

Barry turns back around and keeps walking. 

* * *

He enters the apartment as silently as his aching body can achieve. The last thing he needs is for either of his roommates to see him like this. And not only because of the questions that would inevitably follow. Mr. Cousineau’s voice rings in his brain: “They will shit themselves. I mean, they’re children”. 

He pictures their faces if they saw him now, caked in his own blood, how they would look at him with horror. 

He shakes his head again to get rid of the image. 

Again, bad idea. 

He sneaks through the corridor, but notices both Jermaine’s and Nick's doors are open, with no one inside (he briefly ducks his head in each room to make sure). 

Were they out? Had they told him they’d be out? Was there some sort of acting class meet-up he had forgotten? 

He feels abandoned for a second before reasoning that he wouldn’t be able to make it anyway, not like this. 

He limps to the bathroom, not bothering with keeping quiet anymore. 

The harsh light makes his image in the mirror even more alarming. The bottom half of his face is covered in blood, and everything else in sweat. 

He peels off the hoodie, then the shirt (grimacing at the blood stain all over the back of it), then turns to see how the stab wound looks on his own back. 

He’s met with a gruesome sight. The superglue Fuches had put in there after his shitty stitches broke might have stopped the bleeding, but the wound hadn’t closed at all, more the opposite. He can see his flesh torn inside out, angrily red and raised, and he looks away. 

He sits down on the toilet, trying both not to touch it with his back and not to hunch down and make it worse, and considers his options. 

The wound is in a very inconvenient place because there’s no way he can stitch that up by himself. And his stitching technique isn’t that good either, for all the grief he had given Fuches for his attempt. 

He could go to a hospital, which had been his first idea, and it’s the most logical option. But Fuches had been right (as much as he loathes to admit it), he couldn’t show up in a hospital looking like he did. And the last thing he needed now was _more_ police scrutiny. 

He tries not to think about either Loach or Moss. 

What it all boils down to is he’s kinda fucked. No real options. Either leave the wound as is and pray to whichever God hasn’t forsaken him yet that not only it doesn’t get infected but also heals over without leaving a nasty scar (not like he hasn’t got those already, though), or… 

Does he know anyone, here, that could help him? 

He digs his phone out of the discarded hoodie’s pocket and scrolls through the contact list. 

Not a lot of people there. 

He stops while his finger lingers atop one specific name. 

“I can’t believe I have to do this”, he says to the empty bathroom. 

* * *

“Hey, man!”, NoHo Hank says cheerfully as soon as Barry opens the door, followed by: “Wow, you look like shit.” 

Barry grunts in answer and motions for him to enter. He’s scrubbed his face to get rid of most of the blood, at least, but that’s it for clean up. He’s even put the bloody shirt back on, if only to avoid opening the door shirtless, as if it mattered. 

He stalks down the corridor again, heading to the bathroom, and Hank follows him, in one hand a small white vanity case with a red cross painted on it: to Barry it looks like something a little girl would carry if she were wearing a nurse costume. 

That makes him think of Ronny’s daughter, so he pushes that thought out of his mind too. 

They reach the bathroom, which ends up a bit cramped with both of them inside, and Barry stands there awkwardly for a second. 

“So,” Hank says, again too cheerful for the situation. “You said you needed stitches, yes?” 

“Yeah”, Barry answers, not moving. “You do know how to do that, right?” 

Hank snorts in offense and opens the case. 

“Duh”, he says, starting to unload everything onto the lid of the toilet in a neat row. 

“Wait”, Barry says. “I think it’ll be better if I sit there…” 

Hank lightly taps his forehead with his palm. 

“Yeah, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking”. He gets everything back, and moves it over to the space around the sink. There’s gauze (way too much, Barry thinks), plaster tape, latex gloves, a plastic case which seems to hold the needles and a thread reel with black nylon. Barry wonders again if he really does know how to apply stitches and, if so, how many times he’s done it in the past. 

The last thing Hank puts out is a bottle of rubbing alcohol and Barry is _not_ looking forward to that part, specially. 

Hank lightly touches every item to make sure he has everything and they’re in their place, then turns around and stares at Barry with that unnerving polite smile. 

Barry rubs one eye with the back of his hand, tiredly. 

“So”, Hank says again. “Wwwhere is your wound?” 

“Oh”, Barry reacts. He reaches for the hem of the shirt to pull it off, but stalls for a nanosecond, self-consciously. Not even the Marines’ communal showers had completely gotten that out of him. Nonetheless, he gets it off, then turns around and points at his back. 

Hank lets out a sound between a whistle and a hiss. 

“Yeah, you’d better sit”, he says. 

Barry does, facing the wall and straddling the toilet so his back is accessible. He can’t see much like this and the part of his brain that needs to see an exit route at all times is making his skin itch, which is the last thing he needs right now. 

Hank notices his tension (he _must_ , if he’s looking at his back and all the muscles knit together even as it _has_ to be hurting his wound), so he makes sure to ask before anything. 

“I’m gonna get closer, take a look at it, okay?” 

“Okay”, Barry answers, back tensing even more _somehow_. 

He can feel Hanks breath on his back, before he hears a muttered “what the…” 

“Is that glue?”, Hank asks, bewildered. 

“Super glue.” 

“Not… Medical glue.” 

“No.” 

Barry can’t see Hank’s face but he imagines it as that face he pulls sometimes that makes him look like a customer service agent that’s about to tell you the computer you poured coffee all over is never going to work again and also your warranty is void. 

“Well, buddy, this looks bad.” 

“No shit.” 

“Well… I guess I’d better get it off?” 

The interrogating tone irritates Barry, who is regretting this decision more and more each second. 

“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” 

“I can put on stitches! That’s the only thing you said on the phone, can you do stitches. And I said yes, because I can! But you didn’t mention glue.” 

The smallest, still logical part of Barry's brain tells him Hank’s right. He shushes it. 

“What are you going to do, then?” 

Hank’s in silence for a second. 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, it looks _bad_ , but at least it isn’t bleeding? Should I just leave it?” 

Barry feels so tired he could sleep for a thousand years. 

“I’d rather not”, he offers as an answer, after a deep sigh. 

“… So?” 

“I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. Can’t you peel it off or cut it or something?” 

Hank thinks for a beat then has an epiphany. 

“Oh, actually, I did bring something…”, he turns around and rummages through the case. Barry also looks in his direction, and he can see he gets out a scalpel. 

“You brought a scalpel too?” 

“I like to be prepared”, Hank says, and there’s a hint of pride in his voice. 

Barry turn his head back around to stare at the wall while he hears Hank washing his hands, then put on the gloves, then pour what he assumes is a generous amount of the alcohol onto a gauze. 

“Okay”, he says, moving up behind Barry again. 

“Okay”, Barry echoes, trying to mentally prepare for it. 

“Once I start getting it off it will probably rip some skin with it”, Hank warns him. 

“Mmhm.” 

“It will hurt.” 

“Yeah, I get it”, Barry says exasperated. “Can’t you just do it? The sooner the better.” 

He hears Hank sigh and crack his knuckles and his neck. 

“Okay”, he says again. “I’m gonna start. You ready?” 

“No”, Barry says through gritted teeth. “But do it anyway.” 

Hank puts a hand to Barry’s back, to try to keep him from bucking once he starts, then applies the gauze on top of the wound. 

It burns, but that was to be expected. 

Hank’s making a lot of passes to clean up the dry blood and hopefully soften the glue. When he deems it enough, he crumples the first gauze into a completely red ball, then carefully places it inside the sink and takes a new one, soaking it in alcohol again. This one he keeps onto the wound for a few seconds, trying to get it to seep through. 

Then he takes it off, takes the scalpel and starts peeling the glue away, scraping very close so he preserves as much tissue as he can. 

He’s focused on the work, so he can’t see Barry’s knuckles going white from gripping the toilet too hard. He’s let his head fall atop his arms, and when Hank is almost done but still has to cut around very tender skin, Barry actually bites down into his forearm to keep from screaming. 

“Okay”, Hank says, oblivious to all of that. “That’s done! Phew.” He straightens up after being hunched over for the whole of it. “That was hardcore, huh?” 

Barry doesn’t deign answer. He’s surprised he hasn’t passed out. 

Hank puts on one more square of gauze on top of the wound. 

“It’s bleeding again, obviously”, he explains. “So I have to keep this until it stops, then I’ll do the stitches.” 

“So you have done this before”, Barry says, voice hoarse. 

“Yes, of course.” He pauses for a second. “Well, not since you shot me in the arm, actually. I didn’t know if I would manage again.” 

Barry is also silent for a beat. 

“I’m sorry about that.” 

Hank laughs. 

“No, you’re not. You were doing your job! It’s fine. Water under the bridge.” 

Barry closes his eyes, hard. 

“I didn’t want to end up like this”, he says, in a low tone. 

He doesn’t specifically mean _this_ , in a bathroom with a Chechen mob boss tending to the wound he had gotten after getting his ass handed to him by a feral little blonde girl. 

But it was the principle of the thing. He never wanted to end up like this. 

Miserable. 

“But you’re good at what you do”, Hank says, removing the gauze and opening the faucet to clean his gloved hands. When the water hits the discarded gauze inside the sink a bloody trail dribbles on the white ceramic, pooling at the bottom. “You have to, in this business. If you weren’t you’d be dead.” 

Barry thinks about all the crazy shit that’s happened that day (or yesterday? He’s not sure what time it is, but it has to be the next day already, for sure) and how it _is_ a miracle he’s not dead. 

He has a second of wondering why the hell Hank would accept to come to his aid in the dead of night with basically no question. 

“Ookay, that’s not bleeding anymore”, Hank says, inspecting his back. “Stitches time!” 

Barry loses that train of thought and stares at the wall again. 

Hank threads the needle, whistling softly. 

Barry closes his eyes. 

And he’s back on that field, wearing his Marine uniform. His hair is shaved under the hat and he’s carrying a heavy backpack. People all around him, also in uniform, hurry past to meet their loved ones. There are hugs, and joyous exclamations he can see but not hear. His footsteps feel heavy, like he’s in slow-motion. He knows he has somewhere to go, but he can’t walk faster. 

The crowd parts for a second and there’s Fuches, in what’s probably the only time he’s seen him in a suit, looking legit. His hair is slicked back and he’s smiling. It’s not a warm smile. It says “I knew you’d be back. I knew you would fuck it up”. 

Barry closes his eyes and shakes his head and when he looks again Fuches is no longer there. The field turns into the corridor of a house, walls painted light grey and framed pictures hanging from them. Barry looks straight ahead and sees Sally at the end of it, against a white light, smiling. She has two kids at her sides, a boy and a girl. They’re also smiling. The boy waves at him excitedly. Sally opens her mouth, but Barry can’t hear what she’s saying either. 

A sharp whistle cuts through the cottoned quiet and Barry turns his head. 

There’s an opening on the middle of the corridor. It leads to the field again. 

Only it’s not the same field, Barry notices. But he knows this one too. 

He blinks against the sun, pulls a hand up to his forehead, and now he can see a group of people in the distance. Without realizing, he starts walking towards them, leaving the corridor behind. It evaporates into smoke. 

Now he can hear his footsteps. He looks down and he’s no longer in uniform, he’s just in jeans and a hoodie. He has black boots on and they’re leaving an imprint on the dirt. 

He looks up again. He’s almost joined the group. He knows them, but he can’t tell any of the faces apart. 

One of them turns around and smiles brightly when he sees him. It’s NoHo Hank. 

“Heeey, Barry!”, he hears clearly. “Glad you made it!” 

“Barry?” 

Barry raises his head from his arms, disoriented. The wall of the bathroom is all that greets him. He turns around to look at Hank. 

“Huh?”, he says, still out of it. 

“You really fell asleep while I was doing stitches? Now _that_ is hardcore. How do you do it, man?” 

Barry doesn’t try to explain that passing out from exhaustion and blood loss isn’t falling asleep. Not even close. 

“Are you done?”, he asks instead, rubbing his palm over his face. 

“Yeah”, Hank’s answers. “All done. Covered it up and everything.” 

Barry has the sudden realization that Hank’s probably been done for awhile but hadn’t wanted to wake him up. 

He’d be embarrassed about it, if he wasn’t so goddamn tired. 

He stretches with the utmost care and gets up. Half of his body _had_ fallen asleep by virtue of the horrible position he’d been in for Lord knows how long. He shakes off his hands to stop the tingling. 

Hank closes the zipper of the case. From what Barry can see, he had thrown away all the bloody gauze, and cleaned the sink. 

This time it’s Hank the one who starts walking out and down the corridor and Barry the one who follows him, still shirtless. He stops before the entrance door, by the open kitchen. 

“Hey”, he calls at Hank, who also stops and looks at him while he leaves the case on the counter, like he expects a long conversation now. Barry sighs. “Thank you. For this. You really didn’t have to.” 

Hank makes a dismissive gesture. 

“It’s fine. We’re friends!”, he says, his smile a touch desperate, like he won’t know what to do with himself if Barry contradicts him. 

Barry’s still slow on the uptake, so it’s Hank who tries to save it by himself. 

“And it’s always nice to have a favor from you, you know. Oh, I’m kidding! I meant what I said when I gave you the pin. The debt has been paid. долг был уплачен.” 

Barry can’t deal with Russian right now. Even the short-lived interpreter at their trainings had given him a headache. 

He remembers the dream with a flash and then he tries very, _very_ hard not to dwell on it, at least while Hank’s there, standing right in front of him. 

Hank hasn’t noticed anything and is still talking. 

“-and you know, if I were you, I’d sleep on your back for at least a week. If you can sleep like that, of course. Me, I usually-” 

“Yeah”, Barry finally cuts him off, for both their sakes. He holds up a hand. “Again, thank you.” 

Hank shakes his hand after a second of hesitation, and reflexively puts his other hand on Barry’s arm, squeezing. 

It’s a normal enough gesture, but in this situation, while he’s shirtless, Barry feels like it’s _too much_. Even if he had been like that in Hank’s presence for a while now. 

_Too much what?_ , his brain asks him. 

_Just too much_ , is his self-answer. 

He lets go of Hank’s hand a bit too quickly, and Hank does the same with his other hand and even takes a step back, for good measure. His eyes dart around, without meeting Barry’s. 

“Okay then”, he says, still sing-songy. “Guess I’ll see you around.” He picks up the case, then walks over to the door and opens it. He waves without turning and darts down the hallway of the building, walking fast, as if something’s now chasing him but he’s trying _very_ hard to be cool about it. 

Barry takes the few steps to the ajar door to close it, staring at it for a few seconds before going back down the corridor. He picks up his clothes from the bathroom then carries them to his room. He throws them into a corner. Whether the blood will wash out or he’ll have to throw it all away and spend more of his employee’s discount in Lululemon to get another hoodie, he’ll deal with that tomorrow. 

He falls face first into the bed and finally falls asleep for real. 

He doesn’t dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually bugged a friend who is a doctor (I wrote this months ago, don't worry) about how one would go about fixing Fuches' superglue disaster. Then mostly went and did my own thing anyway. Fiction!  
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and comments and kudos are endlessly appreciated.


End file.
